[merlincorey]

"Code is a liability. What the code does for you is an asset." as quoted from https://wiki.c2.com/?SoftwareAsLiability with Last edit December 17, 2013.

This discussion and distinction used to be well known, but I'm happy to help some people become "one of today's lucky 10,000" as quoted from https://xkcd.com/1053/ because it is indeed much more interesting than the alternative approach.

[jvanderbot]

Code requires maintenance, which grows with codebase size, minus some decay over time. (LLMs do not change this, and might actually be more sensitive to this), So increasing code size, esp with new code, implies future costs, which meets the definition of a liability on a LOC kinda-sorta-basis.

It's not right but it's not wrong either. It at least was a useful way to think about code, and we'll see if that applies in LLM era.

[sswatson]

It’s well known and also wrong.

Delta’s airplanes also require a great deal of maintenance, and I’m sure they strive to have no more than are necessary for their objectives. But if you talk to one of Delta’s accountants, they will be happy to disabuse you of the notion that the planes are entered in the books as a liability.

[jvanderbot]

Whoa whoa whoa let's not bring the accountants in!

Code isn't a liability b/c it costs money (though it does). Code is a liability like an unsafe / unproven bridge is a liability. It works fine until it doesn't - and at that point you're in trouble. Just b/c you can build lots of bridges now, doesn't mean each new bridge isn't also a risk. But if you gotta get somewhere now, conjuring bridges might be the way to go. Doesn't make each bridge not a liability (risky thing to rely on) or an asset (thing you can sell, use to build value)

[hshdhdhj4444]

If Delta was going bankrupt it would likely be able to sell individual planes for the depreciated book value or close to it.

If a software company is going bankrupt, it’s very unlikely they will be able to sell code for individual apps and services they may have written for much at all, even if they might be able to sell the whole company for something.

[_heimdall]

You're hinting at the underlying problem with the quote. "Asset" in the quote reads, at least to me, in the financial or accounting meaning of the term. "Liability" reads, again to me, in the sense of potential risk rather than the financial meaning. Its apples and oranges.

[foobarchu]

If we're bringing in other industries, you'd be wise to consider banking. Savings accounts are something most people would consider an asset, because it's money the bank has on hand and can use for loan purposes.

But it's the opposite, deposits are liabilities because they need interest paid out and can be withdrawn at any time.

Just because the company has a thing that could be assigned value doesn't make it automatically an asset.

[OneMorePerson]

It's possible for something to be both an asset and a potential liability, it isn't strictly one or the other.

[kortilla]

Delta leases a big portion of its fleet, which makes your example pretty bad.